Tag Archives: Southern Ocean

It has just turned winter in the Northern Hemisphere, which
means that it is now summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The
Japanese whaling fleet has entered the Southern Ocean to kill up to
a self-designated quota of 333 minke whales, and Sea Shepherd has
given chase.

We have heard the story before, and many of us have watched the
drama play out during six seasons of the TV series “Whale Wars” on
Animal Planet. This year, Sea Shepherd hopes to have an advantage
with a ship declared to be faster than the Japanese whaling
vessels, as I explained in
Water Ways at the end of August.

On Dec. 3, the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin left Melbourne,
Australia, for the Southern Ocean for its 11th campaign against the
whalers. The Steve Irwin was followed a day later by the new ship,
Ocean Warrior. Yesterday, the Ocean Warrior located one of the
Japanese harpoon vessels, the Yushin Maru, inside the Southern
Ocean Whale Sanctuary, according to Capt. Adam Meyerson, the
skipper of the Ocean Warrior.

“The crews of the Ocean Warrior and the MV Steve Irwin have been
battling through thick fog and ice to protect the whales in the
Australian whale sanctuary,” Meyerson said in a
news release. “The Yushin Maru was hiding behind an iceberg and
came out on a collision course.

“Finding one of the hunter-killer ships hiding behind an iceberg
in a thick fog means that the rest of the fleet is nearby,” he
added. “We all hope to have whaling in the Southern Ocean shut down
by Christmas.”

An organization called Sea Shepherd Global
announced yesterday that it will take up the cause of battling
Japanese whaling ships in the Southern Ocean of Antarctica later
this year.

The announcement comes just days after court approval of a legal
settlement, a deal that will forever block Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society from confronting Japanese whalers on the high
seas.

Sea Shepherd Global, based in The Netherlands, apparently is out
of reach of the U.S. courts, which sanctioned the original Sea
Shepherd group for its sometimes violent actions against the
whalers. Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the U.S. group, is led
by its founder, Capt. Paul Watson, who had stepped down for a
time.

The Ocean Warrior is a new ship
added to Sea Shepherd Global’s fleet.Photo: Gerard Wagemakers, courtesy of
SSG

Sea Shepherd Global has mobilized its forces for what it calls
the “11th direct-action whale defense campaign.” The group has
built a new ship it claims can keep up with and surpass the
Japanese harpoon ships. Anyone who has watched “Whales
Wars,” the reality television series, probably knows that Sea
Shepherd’s ships have suffered from a lack of speed and were often
left in wake of the whaling vessels.

Sea Shepherd, with its fierce opposition to killing marine
mammals, has always claimed to be on the right side of
international law when it comes to whaling. Now its members are
inspired by a 2014 ruling in the International Court of Justice,
which found that whaling — at least as practiced by Japanese
whalers — is not a scientific endeavor. The Japanese government has
lost its only justification for whaling until it develops new
scientific protocols acceptable to the International Whaling
Commission. Review a discussion of these issues in Water Ways,
March 31, 2014, with an update on
Dec. 14, 2015.

Sea Shepherd Global also justifies its plans with a
contempt-of-court citation filed by the Australian Federal Court
against the Japanese whalers for killing protected whales within
the Australia Whale Sanctuary. Japan, however, does not recognize
the sanctuary nor the Australian jurisdiction.

“If we cannot stop whaling in an established whale sanctuary, in
breach of both Australian Federal and international laws, then what
hope do we have for the protection of the world’s oceans?” asked
Jeff Hansen, managing director of Sea Shepherd Australia in a
news release. “We must make a stand and defend whales with
everything we’ve got.”

After the International Court of Justice ruling, the Japanese
took a year off from whaling before submitting a new whaling plan,
which was questioned by a scientific committee at the International
Whaling Commission. Without waiting for approval, the whalers
returned to the Southern Ocean last December. A limited Sea
Shepherd fleet followed, but the whalers killed 333 minke whales —
a quota approved by the Japanese government but nobody else.

Meanwhile, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) has been
engaged in a legal battle with the Japanese-sponsored Institute of
Cetacean Research in the U.S. courts. Initially, a U.S. district
judge dismissed the Japanese claims. On appeal, however, the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals called Sea Shepherd a “pirate”
organization, ordered the group to stay away from the Japanese
ships and eventually found Sea Shepherd in contempt of court for a
peripheral involvement in the anti-whaling effort. Initial appeals
court ruling:
Water Ways, Feb. 26, 2013.

SSCS agreed to pay $2.55 million to settle a damage claim from
Japan in light of the contempt ruling. The group had been hoping
that Japan’s lawsuit in the U.S. courts would open the door for a
countersuit, in which the illegality of Japanese whaling would
spelled out and confirmed.

All legal claims and counterclaims were dropped in the
settlement agreement (PDF 410 kb) between SSCS and the
Institute of Cetacean Research. The agreement, approved last week
by U.S. District Judge James Robart, says SSCS cannot approach
Japanese whaling ships closer than 500 yards. SSCS cannot provide
financial support to anyone else who would approach the Japanese
ships in an aggressive way, including “any entity that is part of
the worldwide ‘Sea Shepherd’ movement and/or uses or has used some
version of the ‘Sea Shepherd’ name.”

The agreement mentions a “settlement consideration to be paid to
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society,” although the amount has not
been disclosed.

The Institute of Cetacean Research immediately issued a news release
about the settlement. Paul Watson offered a three-pronged post on
his Facebook
page. One part was his own message, saying Sea Shepherd would
remain opposed to whaling but would comply with the settlement
provisions.

Another part was a statement from Capt. Alex Cornelissen,
director of Sea Shepherd Global:

“The ruling in the US courts affects ONLY the US entity. All the
other Sea Shepherd entities in the Global movement are not bound by
the US legal system, the mere assumption that it does clearly
demonstrates a lack of understanding of Sea Shepherd Global’s
structure. Sea Shepherd Global and all other entities around the
world, other than the USA, will continue to oppose the illegal
Japanese whaling in the Antarctic.”

“Jeff Hansen, managing director of Sea Shepherd Australia, told
the BBC the U.S. ruling would ‘absolutely not’ affect its own
operations. He said if the ICC (sic, ICR?) were to pursue Sea
Shepherd in Australia ‘they would be entering into a court system
they’re in contempt of, and we would welcome that.’”

In its
statement yesterday, Sea Shepherd Global said it was
disappointed that the international community has not taken more
steps to protect whales in the Southern Ocean. Still, Sea Shepherd
Global will be there with a new fast ship, the Ocean Warrior, built
with the financial support of the Dutch Postcode Lottery, the
British People’s Postcode Lottery and the Svenska
PostkodLotteriet.

“For the first time, we will have the speed to catch and outrun
the Japanese harpoon ships, knowing speed can be the deciding
factor when saving the lives of whales in the Southern Ocean,” said
Cornelissen.

The Ocean Warrior will undergo final preparations in Australia
at the end of the year, about the time that Japanese whaling ships
arrive for their anticipated harvest of marine mammals. And so the
whale wars will go on but without any involvement from Paul Watson
and his U.S. contingent.

By the way, Paul, who had been living in exile in France, has
returned to the U.S., according to a
news release from Sea Shepherd that recounts Paul’s history of
fleeing from prosecutors in Japan and Costa Rica. Paul, 65, and his
wife, Yanina Rusinovich, a Russian-born opera singer, are now
living in Woodstock, Vermont, and expecting a baby in October.

This year’s encounters between Japanese whalers and Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society appear to be the most violent of any year so
far — and the whaling season is not yet over.

As I described in the previous entry in Water Ways, which I just
completed, legal action against Sea Shepherd has caused few
substantive changes in these high-seas confrontations. That’s
because Sea Shepherd has transferred all such operations from its
U.S. organization and to its Australian organization. The move
effectively removes jurisdiction by the U.S. government, according
to Sea Shepherd reports, mentioned in the previous blog post.

So let’s catch up on actions so far this year in the Southern
Ocean between Sea Shepherd and the Institute of Cetacean Research.
As I reported in January
(Water Ways, Jan. 4), Sea Shepherd has added the 184-foot SSS
Sam Simon, a former Japanese government ship, to its flotilla. The
fleet now includes four primary vessels: the Sam Simon, Steve
Irwin, Bob Barker and Brigitte Bardot, as well as several unmanned
surveillance aircraft.

Kozinski, chief judge for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,
concluded in a ruling today that U.S. District Judge Richard Jones
had made “numerous, serious and obvious errors” when he declined to
issue an injunction against Sea Shepherd for its high-seas battle
against Japanese whalers.

The three-judge panel ordered that the case be removed from
Jones’ jurisdiction and turned over to another Seattle district
judge drawn at random.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Cetacean Research — the Japanese
whaling organization — continues its effort to get a
contempt-of-court citation issued against Sea Shepherd, which has
increased its efforts to disrupt Japanese whaling in the Southern
Ocean.

Sea Shepherd remains under a U.S. Court of Appeals injunction,
which requires that the organization’s ships operate safely and
stay 500 yards away from the Japanese vessels.

I’ll provide an update on Sea Shepherd’s activities in a
separate blog post, but let me first tell you more about Kozinski’s
ruling (PDF 238 kb), which finds nothing commendable about any
of Sea Shepherd’s actions.

The Japanese whaling fleet killed 266 Antarctic minke whales
this year, compared to a government quota of 850, plus one fin
whale, compared to a quota of 50, according to Michihiko Kano,
Japan’s minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The Mainichi Daily News, based in Japan, reports that the low
numbers were attributed to bad weather but noted that Sea Shepherd
obstructed the whaling operations 11 times during the season.
—–

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has completed another year of
battling Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic, and again this
year a camera crew was on board its ships to film a new season of
“Whale Wars.” The new season of the TV show will begin in June.

The Japanese whaling vessel
Yushin Maru 2 shoots its water cannons at a Sea Shepherd
inflatable, which had approached it.Photo by Billy Danger, Sea Shepherd

The Japanese government reportedly provided $30 million from its
tsunami and earthquake relief fund to continue the whaling, which
the government allows as “scientific research.” The ban on whaling
includes an exemption for research, but the International Whaling
Commission has failed to preclude the commercial sale of meat from
“research” animals. The result has been an ongoing dispute about
whether commercial whaling should be considered research.

Needless to say, Sea Shepherd does not consider it research. For
the past eight years, the whale-advocacy group has followed the
whaling fleet and disrupted the hunt whenever possible.

For much of the recent whaling season, which began in December,
Sea Shepherd was able to divert the attention of two harpoon ships
and a security vessel. Sea Shepherd’s leader, Paul Watson, said the
whalers ignored their own protocols this year by going to the same
area as last year:

“This illustrates that they really have no scientific agenda at
all since their so-called survey requires them to ‘sample’ whales
from the two different areas alternatively each year. This is not
about science and it never has been. It’s not even about profit
anymore because we have negated their profits. It’s simply about
pride. Whaling in the Southern Ocean has become a heavily
subsidized welfare project for an archaic industry that has no
place in the twenty-first century.”

The following chronology was compiled from reports issued by Sea
Shepherd and by the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research:Continue reading →

The Institute of Cetacean Research, which manages Japan’s
whaling operations in the Antarctic, and Kyodo Senpaku, which owns
the whaling ships, are seeking a court order against Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society.

The goal: to block Sea Shepherd from its “numerous violent and
dangerous attacks against persons and vessels engaged in whaling,
sealing and fishing.”

The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Seattle,
claims the court has jurisdiction over matters between U.S. and
foreign citizens when the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.
Sea Shepherd is based in Washington state, thus the filing in our
region.

The ICR asserts that Sea Shepherd has violated international
treaties and laws, including the “Convention for the Suppression of
Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation” and the
“Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing
Collisions at Sea.”

The lawsuit alleges that tactics used by Sea Shepherd have
endangered Japanese whaling ships and their crews. Tactics listed
include throwing butyric-acid-filled bottles, smoke bombs and
incendiary devices; ramming one ship into another; and entangling
the propellers with ropes.

“Unless enjoined as requested below, defendants will very soon
engage in attacks on plaintiffs that will seriously endanger the
safety of the masters, their crew and researchers, and the vessels
owned by Kyodo Senpaku and chartered by ICR.

“Navigating in the Southern Ocean can be dangerous given the
cold waters, the presence of icebergs, the possibility of storms,
and its isolated location far from ready third-party assistance. If
a ship lost propulsion or steerage due to a successful fouling rope
attack, the ship, its Master, crew, and researchers could be put in
serious jeopardy, especially in the vicinity of floating ice or if
a storm or heavy seas occurred.

“The safety and health of the ship’s crew are endangered by the
launching of projectiles against the ship, especially glass
projectiles filled with butyric acid. A crew member could be
blinded in such an attack or receive a blow to the head or body or
be cut by pieces of glass. Such attacks also cause fear or distress
in the crew, thus interfering with the normal operations on board.
Incendiary devices like those launched in the past could cause a
fire or, even worse, an explosion. Close-quarter attacks by SSCS
vessels run the risk of a collision.

“Ramming of ICR’s and Kyodo Senpaku’s ships could cause them (or
SSCS vessels) to sink or suffer other serious damage. The court
should declare that defendants’ violent tactics employed in the
past against ICR’s and Kyodo Senpaku’s activities in the Southern
Ocean are unlawful, and the court should issue the injunctive
relief requested below so that plaintiffs’ property and the lives
of the Masters, their crew, and researchers are not
endangered.”

I have not talked to Paul Watson about this, but the Sea
Shepherd leader has commented in news stories that he is not
concerned about the lawsuit. Here’s what Watson said in a
press release from his organization:

“This is simply a case of using the courts to harass us. I don’t
believe they have a case and I doubt a U.S. court would take this
seriously. Unlike Japan, the courts in the United States don’t
automatically do what the government demands that they do.”

Watson claims in the press release that the whalers have been
the aggressors:

“We have the images of the Japanese whalers destroying one of
our ships, ramming our ships, running over our crew, firing upon
us, throwing concussion grenades, deploying acoustical weapons,
hitting us with water cannons and bamboo spears and they are suing
us because they are accusing us of violence towards them.”

In an article published yesterday (Monday), Watson told
Radio Australia that he almost welcomes the lawsuit:

“In fact, it’s actually a very positive thing because by filing
in a US court, that gives us the opportunity to counter sue them
for the destruction of the Ady Gil and for illegal whaling in the
Southern Ocean, so our lawyers are certainly going to take
advantage of this.”

Izumi Stephens of Bainbridge Island, now a full-fledged crew
member with Sea Shepherd, is looking forward to watching the fourth
season of “Whale
Wars,” which begins Friday.

Izumi
Stephens

A preview for the program shows Izumi standing on the deck of a
ship, gazing into the ocean with tears in her eyes. The clip is so
short that even she can’t recall when that emotional moment was
caught on film.

“It was probably when I saw a whale,” she said — though it could
have been during other events, such as when the Sea Shepherd crew
searched for a private yacht that had gone missing. Only an empty
lifeboat was found.

Izumi, who has not seen any of the final footage, said she
remained in an emotional state during much of the voyage through
the Southern Ocean, where Sea Shepherd did its best to disrupt the
operations of the Japanese whaling fleet.

Many crew members cried tears of happiness when they learned
that the Japanese whalers were packing up and leaving the Antarctic
a month earlier than normal, their efforts to catch whales
confounded by the anti-whaling group. The whaling would stop — at
least for this year — and Sea Shepherd crew members would return
home to their families.

Unbridled joy has overtaken crews on three Sea Shepherd vessels
as they celebrate a Japanese surrender from whaling in the
Antarctic this year — and possibly for all time.

“Everybody is overjoyed, laughing and crying and hugging,” said
Izumi Stephens, who is serving aboard the Steve Irwin, one of the
three vessels harassing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern
Ocean.

Izumi
Stephens

I spoke to Izumi by satellite phone after the Japanese
government announced an end to whaling a month early this year.
(See story by Martin Fackler in the
New York Times Global Edition.) Japanese analysts are now
speculating that whaling in the Southern Ocean may never resume,
because of the costs, challenges and changes in the market for
whale meat.

“We think the entire thing could be finishing,” Izumi said of
Antarctic whaling efforts. “This may be the last year in the
Southern Ocean for everybody.”

Check out recent stories in the Japanese news organization
Daily
Yomiuri Online, one of which includes this statement:

“In addition to Sea Shepherd’s acts of sabotage, low domestic
demand for whale meat — which used to be a valuable source of
protein during the food-scarce postwar years — also has made the
prospect of continuing whaling extremely gloomy, officials
said.”

Izumi, if you recall, is a Japanese woman who lives on
Bainbridge Island. After her husband died, she became committed to
opposing the killing of dolphins and whales. She joined Sea
Shepherd Conservation Society in November as a Japanese-language
translator and has spent the past three months involved in the
high-seas campaign against the Japanese whalers. See Water Ways for
Jan. 14 and
Nov. 1.

The so-called surrender has become big news in Japan, and Izumi
has taken calls from Japanese reporters and conversed in her native
language:

“I’ve told them that this is a big, big victory, a big victory
for the whales. We are not against the Japanese people or the
Japanese government. We are against the whalers…. We are not
terrorists; we are just intervening against the commercial
whalers.”

Through the Internet, Izumi has been keeping up with numerous
Japanese news reports and blogs, where she has found herself under
personal attack.

“People in Japan are mad at me. They call me a traitor to my
country.”

Izumi is the first Japanese translator for Sea Shepherd to make
her identity known to the public. During taping for the television
show “Whale Wars,” she has not covered her face or kept her name
secret, as previous Japanese translators have done. The revalation
of a possible end to whaling in the Antarctic has raised her
profile more than she anticipated.

“I never expected that it would be like this final end,” she
told me.

She had imagined that the whaling season would end, as usual, in
March and she would return home to her family. Then she would have
all summer to decide if she should do it again. Instead, the
“Japanese surrender” a month early — with uncertain prospects for
the future — has created a media blitz and new level of anger in
Japan.

“I can see in the newspapers that people are really mad,” she
said. “My face is coming up on Japanese TV.”

The Japanese whaling organization, known as the Institute of
Cetacean Research, consistently calls Sea Shepherd an eco-terrorist
organization. The group regularly complains that Sea Shepherd’s
flagship countries, Australia and the Netherlands, fail to take
action for acts of “terrorism and harassment,” including
bombardment with glass projectiles, smoke bombs and “incendiary
devices.” The latest reports talked about the use of lasers aimed
at the whaling ships. See ICR new releases.

According to the report in Daily
Yomiuri Online, the processing ship Nisshin Maru was unable to
shake off the faster Sea Shepherd vessels Bob Barker and
Gojira.

Capt. Paul Watson, who directs Sea Shepherd, said the ability of
his ships to stay with the whaling fleet made all the difference in
this year’s success in minimizing the number of whales killed.
Scroll down to the bottom of this entry to view the on-board video
that Watson issued Saturday.

The Daily
Yomiuri story quoted anonymously a high-ranking ministry
official, who outlined four options for continued whaling:

Have the whaling fleet escorted by Japan Coast Guard vessels or
others, an idea discussed in 2007 but scrapped for lack of escort
ships.

Build new whaling vessels capable of traveling at high speed,
an idea considered “almost impossible” because of costs.

Replace research whaling with commercial whaling, an idea that
lacks support from other countries.

Continue current whaling arrangements, which has proven to be
costly and difficult given the interference of Sea Shepherd.

Izumi said none of the options seems likely, but one never
knows.

Another issue faced by the Japanese, she told me, is the success
of the television show “Whale Wars,” which has brought notoriety
and donations to the anti-whaling cause. The Japanese government
may be concerned that Sea Shepherd will use its new-found clout to
bring more attention to the decline of blue fin tuna (See Operation Blue Rage)
and to the slaughter of dolphins
in Taiji, Japan, and other places around the world.

“I have a crew of 88 very happy people from 23 different nations
including Japan and they are absolutely thrilled that the whalers
are heading home and the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is now
indeed a real sanctuary.”

The Steve Irwin is scheduled to meet up with the Bob Barker and
return to Hobart, Australia. Izumi hopes to fly back home to the
Puget Sound region on March 10.

Izumi Stephens, the Bainbridge Island woman who traveled to the
Antarctic to defend whales against Japanese whalers, has ridden an
emotional roller-coaster during her first 40 days at sea.

Izumi
Stephens

One thing Izumi has learned is that the sight of a humpback
whale can lift her spirits, she told me today by satellite phone
from the Southern Ocean.

A native of Japan, this single mom signed on with Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society as a translator. She is serving aboard the
Steve Irwin, which is part of a three-vessel anti-whaling fleet in
pursuit of four Japanese whaling ships. (Check out previous
descriptions of Izumi in the
Kitsap Sun Oct. 31 and
Water Ways Nov. 1.)

The Steve Irwin left Hobart, Australia, on Dec. 2. Izumi was at
sea about three weeks — having survived a bout of severe sea
sickness as well as homesickness — when she spotted a massive
humpback whale off the side of the ship.

“Before I saw a whale, I was desperately wanting to see my
daughter and go back home, and I wanted to touch my dogs,” she told
me. “Then I saw a whale, and I think my determination and
motivation and everything caught up with me.”

She still misses her children, her friends and her community,
she says, but seeing that first whale reminded her why she had
joined the battle in the first place.

“I’m doing this for the whales and our future and our
community,” she told me, “and I’m so proud.”

Spending weeks at sea is an experience like nothing she has ever
faced before, Izumi said. She takes her turn at mopping floors,
washing dishes and cleaning toilets. She has used her language
skills on only a few occasions — mostly to speak to Japanese
reporters covering the story and updating Sea Shepherd’s new
Japanese-language website.

Watching whales swimming in the ocean has brought real meaning
to the anti-whaling campaign, she said. A day or two after that
first sighting, Sea Shepherd faced its first encounter with the
Japanese whaling fleet.Continue reading →